Looking back on it now, it’s probably our own fault for thinking Dustin Lynch could be one of the good guys. You see him with his strong jaw, refusing to ditch the cowboy hat despite what the Music Row image consultants tell him, and you just hope he could be one of the brave few to make it out of the other side of the sausage factory with a little bit of his dignity still in tact. His first single “Cowboys and Angels” back in 2012 had us all impressed, and singing his praises. He was the William Michael Morgan of his time.

But then Lynch chased “Cowboys and Angels” with “She Cranks My Tractor,” and that should have told us all we needed to know from there on out. God bless Brett Beavers who co-wrote the song, but it’s nothing more than a poor man’s version of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” and that started a fairly awful run of singles from Lynch since then, not excluding last year’s incorrigible “Seein’ Red.”

Now we get this. I just don’t understand how we’re reverting back to Bro-Country and list songs in 2017 after the previous two years saw a slow, but very obvious and significant drawing back from them, even if it meant many were replaced with the sort of Metro-Bro style of Sam Hunt. Even Hunt’s new single “Body Like a Backroad” leans on this list-style of songwriting, and the dropping of ‘s’ on the end of words to aid the delivery of phrases more indicative of hip-hop than country.

“I’m a dirt road, in the headlights. I’m a mama’s boy, I’m a fist fight,” is how “Small Town Boy” starts off. What does this stuff even mean? It’s just nonsensical self-referential, self-ingratiating pap. There’s no point to it except identity politics tied to the demographic country radio is looking to serve, which is primarily people who don’t live on dirt roads, but love to daydream about that lifestyle vicariously through country songs.

Music Row just can’t get off the sauce. In 2016, mentioning dirt roads and tailgates in your song was the first way to get it buried by your publishing house. It was so 2013. Now it’s all the rage again, but we’re still hearing explanations about how it’s the “evolution” of country music. When country got too saturated with Bro-Country, even the label heads were saying that enough’s enough, and challenged people to try and find stronger songwriting. But country music is mistaking a downturn in country radio altogether as a sign that they need to go back to Bro-Country instead of finding a smarter path forward.

Cumulus and iHeartMedia keep having to refinance their massive debt loads, and while every other genre has moved to a system that considers the reality of music streaming and the re-emergence of physical sales, country’s model is still to promote artists through terrestrial radio, and hopefully make their money on touring and 360 deals. This is what a song like “Small Town Boy” is all about. It’s not a “song” for Dustin Lynch to hang his career on, it’s an advertisement for his opening spot of Florida Georgia Line’s “Dig Your Roots” tour which not by accident, is hitting its 2017 stride right as “Small Town Boy” is released to radio. It’s no coincidence that Dustin Lynch releases his most Bro-Country song while he’s on tour with the most Bro-Country act ever.

“Small Town Boy” does have a semblance of a plot one can discern through all the listing in the lyrics. It’s about a small town boy who feels blessed to have a girl that could be anything anywhere, and decides instead to stick it out with him. It’s some respects it’s similar to Lynch’s “Cowboys and Angels” song, but there’s no story, no arc. Go back and listen to a song like Trisha Yearwood’s “Shes In Love With The Boy,” and it’s this song done so much better. And while “Small Town Boy” doesn’t have any obvious electronic elements, the drums are clearly programed instead of played live, and the guitar is incredibly douche-erific adult contemporary/R&B style.

“Small Town Boy” is a song of the past, not of the future. That’s not to say Lynch won’t find any traction with it, because I’m sure the Music Row radio system with gerrymander it to the Top 5 right as Lynch’s appearances on the Florida Georgia Line tour hit their spring stride, and he’s set to release a new album. But this entire system is the reason country is on such shaky ground. The rest of music has moved on, and if country and Dustin Lynch are going to continue to lean on songs like this, they won’t be long for the streaming-based, album-based reality that is seeing the independent side of country continue to gobble up market share, while the mainstream continues to falter by trying to rely on the short-lived successes of the past.

1 3/4 Guns Down (2/10)

65 Comments

Amanda
February 20, 2017 @
9:31 am

What a damn shame. When Dustin tries, he’s actually pretty good. She Wants a Cowboy is decent. Your Daddy’s Boots and Cowboys and Angels are actually really good. This is just boring as hell. At least it’s better than the shit-tacular Seein’ Red, that’s about the only thing it’s got going for it.

Awful song. Very stale. Like you stated, I thought we were past this, too.

There was so much going on with the Grammy’s last Sunday, I didn’t get to post my thoughts about your post about the Keith Urban/ Carrie Underwood disco, but they were this: it’s safe and people right now want middle America (demographic) safe. Anything that makes people uncomfortable (especially political) gets automatically dismissed. Maybe that’s the reason we are reverting back to this shit.

This is interesting. I’ve been thinking about the rising popularity of alternative acts, not only within country circles, but also over to the NPR crowd as a potential search for authenticity in the world of ‘fake news’, media antagonism, and over produced poltics/reality etc etc.

I worry though. Should polarization continue the NPR crowd, and the more general non-country crowd could turn away from anything that sounds twangy given its (inappropriate I think) association with conservativism.

This is a huge issue right now. There are a lot of folks abandoning their country fandom, whether that’s mainstream or independent, especially in the sort of NPR demographic at the moment because they don’t want to be misappropriated as Trump supporters. There is a great cultural realignment going on the likes we haven’t seen since 9/11, and it will have a huge impact on country music and elsewhere in the coming years. I will probably have an article on this soon. Meanwhile the immersive political landscape at the moment is making anything not having to do with politics take second stage, including music, and especially on Facebook. If things don’t change, you’re going to see your final few music blogs left go away, and others by-products of a 24/7 political war. This has even affected the NFL, and there’s no sign we’ll come out of this pattern any time soon. The signs are this is a new reality.

which means their cultural perspective was always political and based on the nervous looking from side to side to determine the “correct” point of view to take. If you’ve ever spent time in a communist regime, you know exactly what this feels like. You can never trust anyone, and learn even to distrust your own feelings.

I sincerely look forward to reading that article Trigger. I think it will be interesting what happens to mainstream Country music if the “NPR crowd” leaves en masse. Especially with all the success Stapleton has seen by bridging the two crowds….

It’s a combination of the two worst trends of the past 5+ years: bro-country and r&b country. The latter had seemingly replaced bro-country as the trend du jour, with Thomas Rhett leading the way and Blake Shelton capitalizing on it. And even FGL felt obliged to give us a song like “H.O.L.Y.” — adult contemporary schmaltz. With this new Lynch song, we now have the unholy alliance of these two abominable trends.

If you listen to Canaan Smith’s “Love You Like That” and compare it to this song, the similarities are obvious, down to an almost identical guitar line throughout and especially the pseudo-r&b style vocals. As with all of Dustin’s recent singles, this is a song where you sway your upper torso, left and right, dropping slightly low — in other words, not exactly what a country boy does. I miss the days when country singers mostly stood in one place and tapped their boots.

R&b country has always been a thing, Stapleton is r&b country (keep in mind the b in r&b stands for blues). Country like r&b is southern roots based music. Rhett just hijacks everyone else’s songs (from pop/r&b) I’m guessing he was eagerly taking notes during Bruno Mars performance at the grammy’s.

I’d make a distinction here between “R&B Country” and “Soul Country.” Soul music has heart and feeling while today’s mainstream R&B is plastic, fake, and devoid of heart or creativity. Therefore: Adele = soul; Drake = mainstream R&B. Under that distinction, James Otto and Ronnie Milsap are to Adele as Thomas Rhett and Sam Hunt are to Drake.

It’s boring because it’s cliche. They’ve gone to this well one too many times. “Cruise” had a catchy melody and did something we hadn’t heard before, even if it’s components were all derivative. “Small Town Boy” is a derivative of a derivative done four years too late.

This has always been my biggest concern with radio crap. Radio is usually the first exposure to song a young wannabe writer will get . And she’ll want to write stuff ” just like the radio ” . If Macdonald’s is what inspires me to wanna be a chef , can you imagine what my burgers will taste like ?

It’s too bad. He’s got a good voice and charisma but it’s wasted on songs like this. I have to admit I do like “Hell of a Night” and especially “Where It’s At” even though they’re by the numbers. He should be recording better material but hey, he keeps getting #1 songs on radio so where’s the incentive?

In fairness, the ‘lifestyle’ can hardly be separated from the genre – no more than the hip hop ‘lifestyle’ can be separated from hip hop. They’re one and the same. The problem with modern country is not a commitment to the lifestyle but that the writers are lazy. Billy Joe and Ray Wylie write about the lifestyle in nearly every song, but they’re actually trying to get to the heart of it, not simply itemizing the by-products of it.

Last summer I got to see Kris Kristofferson & Willie Nelson at Summerfest in Milwaukee. There are about ten or more stages with different artists of all genres. Anyway, when Willie ended his show, I hightailed it across the grounds to catch the ending of Weird Al’s set. Along the way I passed this guy singing “Red” or “Hell of a Night” or maybe it was one of his other songs that all sound exactly alike. But it was so odd having just listened to 2 and a half hours of GENUINE country and to then see this guy in the tightest shirt and jeans singing this cliche pop music to a bunch of screaming girls. I mean, whatever he’s doing was working for him, because I can’t say I’ve ever had a thousand drunk girls screaming my name at the same time. But it sure as hell wasn’t country.

Granted the abuse of Auto-Tune IS pretty much endemic to bro-country’s core definition. Still, it’s particularly glaring here. It has got to be the worst Auto-Tune I’ve heard on any so-called “country single” since LoCash’s “I Love This Life”. And, after that, you probably have to go as far back as McGraw’s “Lookin’ For That Girl” for the next comparison.

I legitimately have nothing more to say about this shameless sellout stunt. It’s by no means the worst song I’ve heard so far this year (that distinction easily goes to “Drinkin’ Too Much”), but it is unquestionably the most blatant sellout move so far this year.

Yes, the Auto-tune was pretty terrible. The thing is, to many they’ll hear this song and think it’s just another studio track done by session musicians, but there is so much electronic residue on it from the electronic drums to the Auto-tune that it drains all soul from it.

Another perfect example of this description that comes to mind is Easton Corbin’s latest single: “A Girl Like You”.

On the surface, it sounds like an attempt to bring back some traditional country instrumentation into the fold. But when you listen to it on headphones especially, you abruptly pick up on all the synthetic flourishes that it is exposed as a soulless so-called “return to form”. Add the terrible lyrics to the picture, and it only further underscores Easton Corbin’s tragic descent.

”.. What does this stuff even mean? It’s just nonsensical self-referential, self-ingratiating pap. There’s no point to it except identity politics tied to the demographic country radio is looking to serve, which is primarily people who don’t live on dirt roads, but love to daydream about that lifestyle vicariously through country songs.”

This is so dead -on ,Trigger, that it hurts to see it on the page . If Seinfeld had been a musician he’d have thrived in this era of heartless , soulless commercial songs about nothing .

What we’re really talking about is a lot of the alt-country and Americana crowd, which is a huge support base for independent country artists who don’t find support from radio, major labels, Music row, or the mainstream media. If they leave in throngs, which they very well may be doing, it could really erode the support base for these artists and their independent labels. Complain about the politics all you want, but this could have real-world implications on people’s careers.

Actually made it through the whole song. I was doing something else, and it was playing in the background, and I didn’t mind it. I mean, I paid no mind to it at all. Completely forgettable. Harmless if you don’t pay attention to the words. EXACTLY what radio is looking for.

somebody should write a little program that will spit out bro country lyrics:

girl you must be in luck
to be up here in my truck
I got some beer on ice
you let your hair down nice
now that we’re outside town
let’s drink another round
crank the music loud
and keep it country proud
etc.

It would fit well with my Bro Country name-generator. You write a whole bunch of mock or trendy Southern names on ping pong balls and put them in one of those old school lottery tumblers. Then you have Larry the Cable Guy do a live drawing every Saturday night. He picks one ball for the first name and one for the last name. It doesn’t really matter, because they are pretty much interchangeable. You get Thomas-Rhett. Could be Rhett-Thomas. Again, it doesn’t matter. Then you get Easton-Corbin. Could be Corbin-Easton or Rhett-Easton, or Thomas-Corbin. Then you get Blake-Shelton and Luke-Bryan. Could be Shelton-Bryan or Luke-Shelton…. The name gets randomly applied to the next twat in line and they automatically get a number one single….

Welcome back bro-country! Thank god! #1 album last week- Brantley Gilbert. Bro country alive and well! Industry execs tried to bury it and overall country sales tanked. They are finally realizing the error of their ways. Give the people what they want!

Welcome back, Greg. How did your crossfit workouts go this week? Also hope your appointments for tanning and touching up the “bro-flow” haircut went well. By the way, I did want to ask you….What conference are you a fanboy of, the SEC or the Big Ten (Not counting Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland, as they seem to be the only Big Ten schools that don’t seem to follow this trend)? Oh and another thing, do you actually know who John Moses Browning is?

My brother and I are huge Dustin Lynch fans, but we both agree that this song is absolute trash. My brother practically punched the car radio when this song came on and hes like THAT is Dustin Lynch?! He couldn’t believe it. I love Dustin’s country rock songs, and his original work, but if the new album is filled with trash like this song I will be sure to not buy it. Shame on his label for making him release this garbage, it’s as bad if not worse than Justin Moore’s awful “Somebody Else Will”.

Well I’m from “small town” Tennessee (just like dustin) and I love this song. The thing all of you are complaining about is what mold you think country should fit into. Everyone is so stuck on “bro country” this and “sounds like r&b” that… call it whatever you want but a good beat is a good beat, and this song has one! If everyone stuck to exactly what they were supposed to… you wouldn’t even have r&b, or rock and roll, or darius rucker, OR ANYTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT! I can say that I grew up in a one blinking light town and this song reminds me of home. You don’t understand the opening lines of the song? Give me a break! Growing up, it was always baffling when you got a girl… a city girl… and took her home, riding back roads in a single cab truck with her sitting in the middle… smelling cow $hit, finding some mud to get stuck in, shooting stop signs, laying on the hood looking at the stars, wading in the creek or whatever, AND THEY LOVED IT! Anyone that didn’t grow up like that won’t understand this song. Anyone who did, will understand it perfectly. Quit you’re complaining and trying to limit or paint anyone into any box! It’s a great song and hopefully Dustin will be able to please everyone on the next one! Finish up your sushi, go get your dry cleaning, take out the bluetooth headset, roll the windows down and find a back road to get your prius lost on… you might like it!